2024-05-18 10:55:18 ¶ ●

The idea that “Hannibal has to compromise on his victim pool for Will to be ok with eloping with him post fall” falls apart when you realise that Will is drawn to Hannibal regardless of his cruelty. Will watches Hannibal kill Abigail right in front of his eyes and still chooses not to sever ties. He chases after him in Europe, genuinely tells him “I forgive you.” Will understands Hannibal’s nature… He understands that he feels unbelievably compelled by Hannibal whilst knowing he is who he is — a sadist who tortures people into their deaths, someone who fucked up Will’s head and framed him for murder for the lols — and Will still feels compassion for him; this is the kind of creature Hannibal is, and he is also mind-numbingly complex and incredibly attractive to Will. The conflict is not that Will has to be okay with Hannibal killing ‘innocents’, it’s that Will has to look in the mirror and be able to accept a version of himself who has also murdered people, directly or indirectly. Hunting killers, being in their heads, Will understands intimately the difference between a killer and a non-killer. For so long his fear has been that he will fall off the metaphotical cliff and be seduced by the nature of murder. Those intrusive thoughs he has tried very hard to keep at bay, and now that he has killed Dolarhyde, it will be immensely difficult for him to reconcile with that version of himself. Post-fall, the conflict should be Will’s cognitive dissonance, and not whether or not he can bend Hannibal’s behaviour.